Social Media

Which App Does Checkins Best? [STUDY]

uTest's Checkin Challenge report looked at checkin applications and found that Foursquare had the least amount of reported bugs and ranked highest in terms of ease of use, while Gowalla won in the location accuracy category. The big loser in the study, however, was the notion of badges for prestige.

In May, the software testing service provider surveyed more than 300 testers in 35 countries on their attitudes toward checkin services Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite.

Participants were also tasked to report bugs. One hundred and seventy-seven bugs were reported for Foursquare, with another 316 for Gowalla and 377 for Brightkite.

The report includes findings in six key areas: ease of use, opportunity to earn deals, location accuracy, status features, friend connectivity and social media integration. Foursquare ranks highest in all but the location accuracy category, as seen below.

In terms of feature significance, 46% of respondents voted "ease of use" as the most important criteria for choosing a checkin service. Location accuracy came in second with 24% of the vote. Despite the popularity of Foursquare badges, the ability to earn status or prestige with badges or stamps was voted "most important" by only 2% of the respondent pool.

When it comes to privacy, 80% of respondents indicated that they were concerned about the impact checkins have on their personal safety. Forty-nine percent said that they don't use the services more often because of privacy concerns.

uTests's findings are not scientific, but they do underscore a few interesting points, mainly that privacy is a huge concern and badges may not be as cool to users as we think. If you're building location-sharing into your application, these findings might help you fine tune your offering to better address users' wants and needs.

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